Philosophy Course

Lesson 1 • Philosophical Writing Basics

Introduces the structure of a philosophical essay and the standards of clarity and precision. Prepares students to express ideas in the discipline's written form.

Lesson 2 • Core Philosophical Questions

Surveys the fundamental questions of existence, knowledge, value, and mind. Connects recurring questions to the branches introduced previously.

Lesson 3 • Reading and Interpreting Philosophical Texts

Teaches strategies for close reading, identifying arguments, and reconstructing an author's position. Builds the textual skills needed throughout the course.

Lesson 1 • Inductive and Abductive Reasoning

Analyses enumerative induction, analogical reasoning, and inference to the best explanation. Shows how non-deductive reasoning operates in philosophy and science.

Lesson 2 • Basic Concepts of Logic

Covers propositions, truth values, validity, and soundness. Provides the formal vocabulary required for all subsequent argument analysis.

Lesson 3 • Argument Mapping and Reconstruction

Teaches diagramming complex arguments to reveal structure and hidden premises. Integrates logic skills with the close-reading skills from Chapter 1.

Lesson 4 • Identifying and Avoiding Fallacies

Catalogues formal and informal fallacies with real philosophical examples. Equips students to detect flawed reasoning in texts and debates.

Lesson 1 • Social and Feminist Epistemology

Introduces standpoint theory, epistemic injustice, and the social dimensions of knowledge. Broadens the epistemological framework beyond individual knowers.

Lesson 2 • Skepticism and Its Responses

Analyses Cartesian scepticism, the brain-in-a-vat scenario, and major anti-sceptical strategies. Develops students' ability to assess radical doubt arguments.

Lesson 3 • The Nature of Knowledge

Examines the traditional tripartite definition of knowledge and Gettier-style counterexamples. Establishes the central problem epistemology must solve.

Lesson 4 • Theories of Justification

Covers foundationalism, coherentism, and reliabilism as competing justification frameworks. Connects each theory to the broader problem of epistemic regress.

Lesson 1 • Identity and Persistence

Analyses personal identity, the ship of Theseus, and criteria for persistence through change. Connects identity puzzles to practical questions about persons.

Lesson 2 • Causation and Necessity

Covers regularity, counterfactual, and powers-based theories of causation. Examines modal concepts of necessity and possibility central to metaphysical argument.

Lesson 3 • Ontology: What Exists

Examines the question of being, categories of existence, and debates between realism and anti-realism. Grounds subsequent metaphysical topics in ontological vocabulary.

Lesson 4 • Free Will and Determinism

Examines hard determinism, compatibilism, and libertarian free will. Bridges metaphysics with ethics by analysing moral responsibility conditions.

Lesson 1 • Intentionality and Mental Content

Examines how mental states are about things, covering internalism, externalism, and the Chinese Room. Connects mental content to language and meaning.

Lesson 2 • Physicalist Theories of Mind

Covers identity theory, functionalism, and eliminative materialism as physicalist accounts of mental states. Evaluates each theory's explanatory power.

Lesson 3 • Artificial Minds and Cognitive Science

Evaluates computational theories of mind and the Turing Test in light of earlier theories. Bridges classical philosophy of mind with contemporary cognitive science.

Lesson 4 • Consciousness and Qualia

Analyses the hard problem, Mary's Room, and the zombie argument against physicalism. Focuses on the explanatory gap between physical processes and experience.

Lesson 1 • Metaethics: The Status of Moral Claims

Examines moral realism, anti-realism, and expressivism as accounts of what moral statements mean. Grounds normative theory in metaethical foundations.

Lesson 2 • Virtue Ethics

Examines Aristotelian eudaimonia, virtues, practical wisdom, and contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethics. Shifts focus from acts to character and human flourishing.

Lesson 3 • Deontological Ethics

Covers the categorical imperative, duties, rights, and contractualist approaches. Contrasts duty-based reasoning with consequentialist calculation.

Lesson 4 • Consequentialism

Analyses utilitarian theory, act vs. rule variants, and objections including the demandingness problem. Develops skill in outcome-based moral reasoning.

Lesson 1 • Distributive Justice

Covers egalitarian, libertarian, and capabilities approaches to fair distribution of resources. Applies ethical frameworks from Chapter 6 to political institutions.

Lesson 2 • Global Justice and Political Borders

Investigates cosmopolitan vs. statist views on global obligations, migration, and international justice. Extends domestic justice frameworks to the global level.

Lesson 3 • Social Contract Theories

Compares Hobbesian, Lockean, and Rousseauian contract theories and their implications for government. Traces how different starting assumptions yield different political conclusions.

Lesson 4 • Liberty, Rights, and Democracy

Examines negative and positive liberty, human rights foundations, and democratic theory. Connects abstract rights claims to institutional design.

Lesson 1 • Cross-Domain Philosophical Problems

Analyses problems that span multiple branches, such as moral realism's dependence on metaphysics. Trains students to see philosophy as an integrated discipline.

Lesson 2 • Philosophy of Science

Examines scientific explanation, confirmation, the demarcation problem, and scientific realism. Connects epistemological tools to the evaluation of scientific knowledge.

Lesson 3 • Philosophy of Language and Meaning

Covers reference, meaning, speech acts, and the relationship between language and thought. Provides tools for analysing how philosophical claims are linguistically expressed.

Lesson 4 • Evaluating Contemporary Philosophical Debates

Applies the full toolkit to live debates in ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. Prepares students to engage with current philosophical literature independently.